Turning Points
by illuminata79
Summary: Mick is in for some surprises with far-reaching consequences. A story in two chapters.
1. Chapter 1

Mick has found a way to somewhat compensate his still-existing wish for a child and begins thinking about various aspects of family as some developments take him by surprise.

_Elton John: Blessed_

_Hey you, you're a child in my head_  
_You haven't walked yet_  
_Your first words have yet to be said_  
_But I swear you'll be blessed_

_I know you're still just a dream_  
_Your eyes might be green_  
_Or the bluest that Ive ever seen_  
_Anyway you'll be blessed_

_And you, you'll be blessed_  
_You'll have the best_  
_I promise you that_  
_I'll pick a star from the sky_  
_Pull your name from a hat_  
_I promise you that, promise you that, promise you that_  
_You'll be blessed_

_I need you before I'm too old_  
_To have and to hold_  
_To walk with you and watch you grow_  
_And know that you're blessed_

* * *

_October 1950_

„Look out, Mick!" one of the boys shouted. At the same time, Conrad yelled furiously, „Henry, can't you be careful? You're such a …"

I reached out, effortlessly plucking the errant ball from the air, pointed at my young friend with the other hand and told him with emphasis, „_No_ calling each other names, remember the rules?"

"Ye-es ... but he almost hit _you_ with the ball! He's just a baby, really. Way too little to play with us. I wonder why he's allowed to be here at all", he grumbled, looking to where his brother stood, and yelled, "Come on over here, you little fool! Move!"

I shot him a warning look as Henry came shuffling across our improvised baseball field, dragging his feet, his lower lip pushed out sorrowfully. Conrad dropped his homemade bat, lunged at the younger boy, grabbed him by the shoulder and gave him a rough shake. "Have you got any idea what happens when you get cracked in the head with a baseball? People _die_ when they get hit in the wrong spot! You could have _killed_ him!"

"No, I couldn't have", Henry whispered with forced defiance, but he looked doubtful if his brother's claim might not be true after all, and his eyes brimmed with tears as he cautiously peered into my direction.

"Conrad, that's _enough_ now!" I interfered angrily. "I'm not dead, I'm not even _hit_, he missed me by half a yard and he wasn't even throwing very hard. No need to make such a fuss."

Conrad pouted a bit but grudgingly let go of his brother.

I clapped my hands. "Come on, boys, back to the game. Who's next to throw?"

"Me!" ten-year-old Walter Franklin shouted with some excitement, took up his position and threw a rather neat curveball. Some of the boys applauded, and Walter, who was short for his age and very quiet but had a rather good command of any kind of ball, grinned shyly when I patted him on the back and said, "Well done, Frankie. Ben, hurry up, it's your turn now!"

I couldn't help grinning when the boy almost tripped over his own feet with eagerness as he sprinted to the plate.

I'd never have imagined I would end up playing the baseball coach, but Conrad and his friends had taken a fancy to the game a while ago and pestered me, the only American they knew, until I agreed to teach them a few basic things. I had never been much of a baseball fan back in the States, but I knew enough about the rules and tactics to instruct the boys, about a dozen of whom came more or less regularly.

I had come to love our practice routine every other Saturday, acting as coach and umpire in one person, but I hated when sibling rivalries erupted on the field, which was no rarity - either it was Conrad trying to get rid of Henry, or it was Jonny Callahan picking on his younger brother Liam, or Ben and Larry, the sprightly Gilmour twins, teaming up against Topher, who was two years older but the least sporty boy I had ever seen – although all of them knew that I was not prepared to let any bad behaviour fly, especially not against the younger kids.

"Boy, I'd never have thought you could be that strict", Conrad had told me once, after I'd sent Jonny home because he wouldn't stop riling Liam even after I had reprimanded him several times. "But I guess you have to be if you're the coach", he had added in an attempt to sound grown-up and very insightful.

I had not been forced to be strict again today. Conrad's skirmish with Henry had been the only brotherly run-in, and even the two of them had made up by the time we were finished and the boys picked up their bicycles that lay strewn carelessly along the edges of the grass, bellowing their goodbyes and waving eagerly as they dashed off home.

"See you all next week", I shouted after them, pocketed the ball one of them had left behind on the field and strolled towards the bus stop at a leisurely pace.

I had promised Evelyn, who had gone downtown for some shopping, to meet her at a café we both liked, and when I walked in, she was already there, tucking into a large piece of chocolate cake.

She gave me a contrite look and said, "I'm sorry I didn't wait for you to arrive, but I was so hungry and I felt I was going to faint any minute if I didn't eat something right away."

"Don't you worry. I love you anyway", I said and sat down opposite her.

"I love you, too. Even with your dirty face", she replied.

When I frowned, bewildered, she pointed at a spot below my right eye and added, "You have a brown smudge on your cheek."

I wiped at it with the back of my hand and remembered that I had helped Larry dust himself off after he'd fallen. I must have touched my face unconsciously afterwards.

No wonder that some of the respectable elderly ladies on the bus had looked at me with a mixture of disapproval and indulgence. I had given them my nicest smile, thinking they were merely irritated by my scruffy clothes – a worn tweed jacket with the baseball making a huge bulge in one pocket, somewhat baggy brown trousers, an old pale yellow shirt without a tie, and no hat to cover my ruffled hair. That I'd had dirt on my cheek on top of everything else made me grin belatedly. I still loved breaking silly social rules and relished the fact that I, being a wounded veteran, could usually get away with eccentric behaviour.

While I had my coffee and apple pie, Evelyn asked about the training and the boys, but she seemed distracted and was untypically eager to leave as soon as I had finished.

"Fine with me", I said. I wasn't too keen on the bustling city centre anyway and liked the thought of spending the rest of the sunny day in the garden or maybe on the beach.

Back home, I threw open the French doors in the living-room and went to sit on the bench that overlooked the sea.

More than three years after we had moved in, I still marvelled at how we had been lucky enough to get our hands on this little gem of a home, if temporarily. I didn't even want to imagine that we might be forced to find something new in a year or two when the Valentines came back from the States. Better not think about it too much.

Wondering where Evelyn had got off to, I glanced back towards the house, and there she was, crossing the lawn, carrying a small tray with two fluted glasses, giving me a reproachful look for spotting her prematurely and thus spoiling the surprise.

I raised an eyebrow as she set the tray down on the bench and sat beside me. "What's this? We've still got two weeks to go until my birthday", I said jokingly.

"This isn't about your birthday." She smiled, a queenly, knowing smile.

"But … we have something to celebrate? Did you get a pay rise, or a promotion?"

"It's not about my job. Not directly. Although I will be taking some time off work, too."

"Take time off? To do what? Write another book?"

She smiled even broader. "Turn a new leaf, more like. Start a new chapter."

I stared at her, trying to make sense of what she was saying.

"We're going to be a family, Mick." She reached for my hand. "You're going to be a father in autumn."

"Dear God." I clutched her hand and couldn't have said what I was feeling. "Is that really true?"

"Of course it is! Would I be telling you otherwise? I've been to the doctor's this morning, and he estimates I'm about two and a half months along."

My head was swimming. I knew I should say something but all I could do was look at her with an incredulous imbecile grin until she raised her glass and said, "Let's drink to our little surprise guest."

Surprise indeed.

I would never have expected this to happen. She had appeared so busily involved with Roy and the university all the time, there had even been some talk about the possibility of spending some time in the U.S. as a visiting lecturer, a prospect both of us had been a little torn about.

Motherhood had been one thing that never seemed to be on her agenda.

We clinked glasses, and I drained half of mine in one go, not speaking for a while afterwards.

Apparently, I was still looking somewhat befuddled, for she asked, "Are you happy, Mick?"

"Oh, _yes_", I said, although I still wasn't sure what exactly my feelings were. "Very happy. What about you?"

"I am … now", she said a little guiltily. "To tell the truth, I wasn't thrilled when I first suspected something. It sounds terribly careerist and selfish, but the first thing I thought of was this new project I told you about. Roy and I have been working so hard on it, and now I won't be able to be in it until the end. What's more, getting back on the job after a while will be quite difficult, I presume. The academic world doesn't stop turning while you're taking a time-out to raise a child, and it remains to be seen if they'll want me back at all once I'm a mother." She sighed. "And next, I wondered what you would say. We'd never really talked about kids, and I wasn't sure if you wanted any. At first, I was a little afraid to tell you, to be honest."

I took another sip of the bubbly and remained silent.

"But then, I suddenly remembered that night when Conrad was so ill and you were babysitting Henry. When I came back from the hospital, you were holding him in your arms. He looked as if he actually belonged there, and there was something in your eyes I had never seen before."

I had a very clear memory of that evening myself, of the sleeping boy, of my mediocre attempts at singing him a lullaby, and of the craving that had taken hold of me out of the blue.

"I just know you'll be a wonderful father", she added.

I wasn't so sure about that, but I said nothing.

Instead, I hastily emptied my glass, set it aside and bowed my head to kiss her on the lips, seeking reassurance in her familiar embrace.

Yes, I was happy about the news that we would be a family after all, that this old dream of mine was finally coming true, but my joy was not unreserved.

I was also pretty scared, now that it was an irrevocable fact that there was a baby on the way.

Scared of the enormous responsibility a child meant.

Scared of not being up to the challenges of fatherhood, be it because of my disability or of other shortcomings I had.

Scared of all that could go wrong along the way, both for Evelyn and the baby.

I stiffened at the notion and pressed her tighter against me, staring blankly into space over her head.

I knew how dangerous a birth could be, for mother and child. My own mother had almost lost her life when Jess was born, and for the first anxious couple of days, it had been anything but sure that the baby was going to survive.

What was I supposed to do if history repeated itself, with a turn for the worse?

And even if the birth did go well, there was so much you could do wrong as a parent. It was so easy to damage a child permanently without the slightest intention. To burden him or her with too many expectations or to show too little appreciation. To harm a trustful little soul again and again with a harsh word, a slap here, a thoughtless remark, a lapse of temper there.

There was so much else that could happen, too, shattering things that could not be influenced, calamities the greatest love and care in the world could not prevent. Life had taught me that lesson very early on.

I had been a perfectly happy little boy, living in my cosy little world, getting my hugs from Mom and playing games with my dad, the person I trusted and loved and adored more than anything. And then, he went away to fight in the war in Europe, and on a warm summer day when I was not even five years old, I found Mommy sitting in the kitchen, crying over a telegram, and she told me Daddy would not be coming back, no matter how long I waited.

I was older now than both of my parents would ever be. They had been so young when they'd had me, my mother nineteen and my father twenty-one, and still neither had lived to see me reach my twentieth birthday.

My father had been killed in combat, which certainly wasn't going to be my destiny any more, but what if some fateful accident like the one that had claimed my mother's life happened to me while the child was still young?

Or, much worse, what if something happened to Evelyn? What would I do without her? How would I take care of a helpless little baby when I sometimes couldn't even seem to look after myself properly?

"Stop brooding, Mick." Evelyn had gently disengaged herself from my arms, taking my face into both hands, and gave me a long, intense look. "Don't start imagining all that could go wrong."

"I didn't …"

"Of course you did. You don't fool me, Mr. Carpenter. I've known you for long enough." She ran her thumb along my cheekbone affectionately. "Why don't you believe everything will be okay, just this once?"

I smiled wryly. "You know I'm an old pessimist, but I'll try my best." I leaned forward to kiss her on the forehead. She tilted her face up at the same moment, and our noses collided, which made both of us laugh. We were still chuckling softly as we kissed, my hand on her still-flat belly that was now, inconceivably, sheltering a tiny creature sprung from our love.

* * *

That she was really, truly carrying our baby remained unreal to me even as a charming little bulge began to show and her skirts and trousers got too tight around the waist.

At home, she took to wearing loose-fitting shirts, which she sometimes nicked from my side of the wardrobe, over pants with the top button left open. Her breasts grew rounder and heavier, her face softer, and I found she was more beautiful than ever.

She tired faster than usual, but apart from that, she didn't seem to suffer from any pregnancy-related ailments and went on with her life pretty much as before. When I asked her to be careful and to make sure she got enough rest, she just laughed. "I'm pregnant, Mick, not terminally ill. You'll see, I'll automatically take things easier and let you do all the work once I get really fat."

I, for my part, kept alternating between elation that I would at last get to hold a child that was my very own and recurring profound doubts and worries.

I was ready to do anything for the little one to be safe and happy, but I only needed to read the latest news from Korea in the papers to start wondering if it was a good idea to have children in a world full of idiots waging wars that killed or crippled their fathers. Or even themselves.

One Sunday morning, something else struck me as I watched her devour her eggs and several slices of toast with a healthy appetite, and I asked her hesitantly, "Evelyn … the baby _is_ okay, isn't it? Everything going according to plan?"

"_Yes_, Mick. I told you a million times everything's fine. I swear it is. Really."

She sounded a trifle irritated, so I felt compelled to explain myself, even if it wasn't a very suitable subject to discuss over breakfast. "Good. I only thought … well, it seems rather silly now that I'm saying it aloud, but … you've never been sick in the morning, have you?"

"Ugh, no." She laughed. "Fortunately, not all women get morning sickness."

"Oh, really? I didn't … know that." I felt stupid for having assumed all my life that vomiting in the morning was an integral part of any normal pregnancy. "I remember that my mother used to throw up a lot when she was pregnant, at least during the first half or so, and everybody kept telling her that the sickness was a sure sign that the baby was doing fine."

"I know that's what they say, but it's utter nonsense. Thank God. I can do without hugging the porcelain every morning." She made a face and then became serious, studying me silently for a minute before she said, "Did you just say you remember when your mother was pregnant?"

"Um … yes? Why?"

"Mick, you can't possibly remember anything from when you weren't even born!"

Now I was the one to give her a puzzled stare, until I realized that there was something I had never told her, perhaps because I didn't like to think too much about it myself.

"Oh, I see", I said and went on to explain quietly, "I'm not talking about when she was expecting me, obviously. My mother remarried when I was nine, and she got pregnant with my sister not much later. I remember very well how I thought she was terribly ill when I first noticed she was running to the bathroom all the time. I was really worried until they told me I was going to have a little sibling."

Evelyn breathed, "I had no idea you've got a sister. I've always believed you were an only child."

"In a way, that's what I've been for a long time", I replied.

She gasped softly, apparently thinking whatever brothers or sisters I might have had were long dead.

I knew I was being too cryptic, but it took me a long pause and some very deep breaths until I was ready to tell Evelyn of the girls I had left behind when I went away to pursue my dreams and never saw again after Mom's death.

She listened intently as I spoke of Jess and Janie, of how we had loved and adored each other, how I had gone back home to Maine with the promise to write and visit them regularly, and how I had lost track of them painfully soon after the accident that killed my mother when they moved out of town without leaving as much as a forwarding address.

As I relayed how I had followed up what little leads I'd had, to no avail, my voice failed repeatedly, and to my horror, I felt my eyes prickle suspiciously.

"I've never been able to shake the feeling that I failed them", I said sadly. "I promised I would always love them and stay in touch forever, and I didn't even manage to make good on it for more than a year."

It still hurt, two decades later.

I silently vowed nothing would ever make me abandon my child as long as I lived, and I wished I would find some way to locate the girls, who weren't girls any more now but grown-up women in their twenties.

If they would want to see me at all. I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't after such a long time. They had probably given up on me ages ago.

Evelyn reached for my hand across the table and said, "Don't berate yourself, Mick. It wasn't your fault. You did your best, especially considering you were hardly more than a kid yourself at the time. What else could you have done when you were left without any hint where they had moved off to? Who knows, maybe they have tried looking for you, too, without knowing where to start."

I had never seen it that way, that maybe one of them, or both, might have begun to search for me once they were old enough, turning up nothing but dead ends because nobody knew where I had gone after decamping from my quarters above Harry's bar in Portland.

"Yes, who knows", I said, thinking that perhaps I ought to give it one last try.

I made a mental note to find out how to start an enquiry with the Red Cross or some other organisation helping people in search of loved ones.

If it had been possible for me and Evelyn to be reunited, maybe there was a chance that I might find my sisters, too, and that our child would have two aunts who were more to him or her than just a pair of little girls in an old photograph.


	2. Chapter 2

_January 1951_

There it was again, a little flutter inside me, as delicate as butterfly wings. I stopped typing for a moment and held my breath, hoping I'd get to feel it once more.

It was the most peculiar and the most heart-warming sensation.

I had tried to describe it to Mick, but words just didn't suffice to convey what it was like when the baby moved in my womb. He said it sounded like the most beautiful thing in the world, but he still had trouble really imagining it.

At five months, bending over was getting more and more difficult, I moved a little slower than I used to, and I had needed to get some new clothes to accommodate the growing bump, but otherwise I was surprised to find I was feeling just wonderful and actually enjoyed this new experience.

The baby had apparently decided it was time for a rest and did not move again. With a little smile on my lips, I returned to my typewriter and the journal article I was working on.

The distinctive click of a key turning in the front-door lock made me frown. I pushed a stack of paper aside to check the small clock on my desk and wondered what on earth Mick was doing home at half past three on a Wednesday at the height of the season.

With a bad gut feeling, I got up and went into the corridor.

"Mick?"

He was hanging up his jacket, facing away from me, but even so I could see he was trying way too hard to appear relaxed and casual.

When he turned and looked at me, I was startled by his sagging shoulders, his white face and dark disturbed eyes.

"Mick, what's the matter? Are you ill? Is it your leg? Did you take a fall?"

He shook his head mutely.

"Was there some incident at the shop? Did you get robbed?"

Again, he shook his head without a word, weakly touched a hand to his face and said in a terribly hollow voice, "Donnie's dead."

"_What?"_ I exclaimed, utterly horrified.

"Donnie's dead", he repeated. "He went out around noontime to buy us sandwiches for lunch and got run down by a car on his way back. Bastard just drove off and left him there. Not that it would have been any use, the police said he was gone right away and never knew what hit him, but still …"

"Oh God."

I could hardly believe it. Donnie was one of those people you simply don't ever associate with mortality, a fun-loving, easy-going type of about Mick's age with a boyish charm and an eternal grin on his face.

Losing him, Mick did not just lose his boss.

He lost a friend.

His only close friend beside Joseph Schell, who had virtually become family, along with his two boys.

I went to put my arms around him without saying anything. He held on to me for a minute, stunned and silent, but broke away rather fast, murmuring, "I need a shower."

Of course. He needed to be alone with his grief.

I watched him sadly as he walked down the corridor to the bathroom, pretending he was as okay as he could be. It was his gait that betrayed him, the way he dragged his artificial leg and kept his back rigid.

I heard him turn the water on and went back into my study with a heavy heart.

* * *

The warm water flowed down my face, mingling with my tears, washing them away.

Only a few hours ago, Donnie and I had been discussing weekend plans while he was refilling the shelves of fishing gear with bait jars and lures and hooks from a large cardboard box tucked under his arm and I was tidying up one of the messy drawers beneath the counter. The weather forecast for Sunday was fine, and we had wanted to take the _Maria, _Donnie's pretty sloop he had named for his wife, on a trip up the coast as we often did on sunny weekends.

In my mind, I had already heard the snap of her white sails in the breezy wind and felt the exhilarating sensation that took hold of me every time she picked up speed.

If it hadn't been for Donnie's persistent cajoling, I might never have gone sailing again, but he had refuted all my objections until I had found myself in a rocking dinghy with Donnie rowing the two of us over to where the _Maria_ lay moored. Somehow, I had managed to get on board and off again without taking an unplanned bath, and on the way back, Donnie had said with a disrespectful grin, "Didn't lose any of your _sea_ legs, did you?"

The memory made me smile for the fraction of a second and then had me crying even more.

I couldn't believe he was gone. It was such a senseless waste.

Why did life have to be so bloody unfair so often?

I turned off the tap and towelled myself dry, rubbing fiercely as if trying to erase the solemn expression of the policeman who had broken the awful news to me, the shock registering in the face of the customers who happened to be around when the cop came in, and Maria's terrible anguished cry on the phone when I called her to say that the man she had married last spring was dead, killed on his lunch break by some coward in a sports car.

After making this dreadful call, I had locked up the shop and sat behind the counter for a long time, my head in my hands, trying to grasp what had happened and finding I couldn't.

Mechanical routine had kicked in when I did the daily closing, switched off the lights, checked all the doors and windows and went to the bank to deposit the day's takings before I caught the bus home.

Routine would hopefully keep me going until I knew what was to become of the shop that I had grown to love almost as if it were my own.

I had no idea what its future would be. Donnie and I had never talked about these things because it had never seemed necessary, not for a very long time.

In the end, his older brother Elliott, the eldest living relation, inherited the shop, as Donnie had not made a will stating otherwise, and decided to quit his office job at a furniture factory to manage his new business.

He wasn't much of an expert in boating and fishing and the direct opposite of his brother in virtually every respect – withdrawn, tight-lipped, a typical number-cruncher whom I was happy to leave poring over the books in the back room most of the time while I dealt with the customers alone.

The regulars were simply glad that business went on more or less as usual, and I was thankful that I still had a job, but it wasn't the same without Donnie.

It was not that Elliot was unfriendly or impolite, but he remained so remote and distant, hiding behind an expressionless face. He didn't seem to have any passion for what we were doing here, or for anything else. His foremost concern was with the figures in his ledger, not with the people we served and the merchandise we handled. He went fishing with his sons occasionally, but more for their sake than for his own pleasure, and although he knew how to sail, he didn't seem to care for it.

At first, he only came into the shop in the evenings or on Saturdays because the company he worked for wouldn't let him leave immediately.

I didn't mind. I knew my trade well enough by now to keep things up and running, and I had taken on a fifteen-year-old boy, Dougal McKenzie, to help me.

Initially, I had simply wanted someone to lend a hand with all that was too much of a challenge for me physically, but he was clever, quick-witted and very willing to learn, so it wasn't long until I promoted him to shop assistant.

Elliott was wary of Dougal, foremost because he hailed from a less than respectable part of town, and often eyed him suspiciously when he was manning the cash register, but I never had cause for complaint about the boy, and the customers seemed to like him, too.

Sometimes I wished things could stay the way they were now, with Elliott only popping in occasionally to do the bookkeeping, as I sensed he didn't really fit in.

But as of March, he took over fully, apparently bent on performing the clean sweep he thought was expected of a new broom.

First of all, he declared that he didn't like people hanging around the shop and talk after they had made their purchase, and one day he actually had the nerve to turn out Stevie Pearson.

As was his habit, my old pal had been sticking around for a while after he'd bought some repair material for his boat, telling me some anecdotes from his colourful life.

Stevie gave me a long, meaningful look before he slapped his cap back on his balding head and shuffled off, muttering something unintelligible, and left me feeling like a coward for not interceding on his behalf, although it would certainly not have been wise to confront Elliott in the presence of customers.

I tried to talk some sense into him later, said he'd only succeed in scaring away all those who came not just to buy something but also in a way to meet old friends, but he wouldn't hear of it. "Let them go to the pub to chatter" was his sole comment. For him, work and pleasure clearly didn't mix.

Next, he got it into his head that Dougal and I ought to wear a tie at work.

I flatly refused. I didn't think we would sell any more fenders and fishing hooks than we did now just because the two of us tied strips of cloth around our necks, or rather, I didn't think any of our customers cared about our clothes at all, which was exactly what I said to Elliott. He stared at me in disbelief, his mouth opening and closing like that of a fish out of water, and retreated into his cubbyhole behind the shop without speaking a word, shaking his head about my latest exhibition of fractious behaviour.

Dougal and I exchanged a glance that said more than a thousand words and continued to show up for work in our usual clean, neat, open-necked shirts. Elliott glared at us the next morning but kept his mouth shut.

I tried hard to maintain the old spirit in the weeks that followed, but it was difficult with Elliott around. He didn't show himself a lot in the sales room, but nevertheless there was a subtle but perceptible change in the atmosphere that had nothing to do with Donnie's loss.

I missed him more with every day that passed, missed his perennial good humour and laid-back manner, his friendship and his way of making anyone feel at ease. He had truly been the soul of the place.

I also missed my little chats with the regulars. Hardly anyone ever lingered at the counter any more like they usually had. Even Stevie ceased dropping by quite as often as he used to.

Occasionally, when there were no other customers to take care of and Elliott had holed up in his office, I would go outside with Stevie for a quick smoke and a chat before I'd slip back inside again, half hoping my new boss had not noticed, half hoping he had and the underlying tension between us would finally erupt in a clash of tempers, ending this coolly civil keeping up of appearances that only masked our growing dislike for each other.

Only trouble was that this man didn't seem to _have_ a temper. He was the kind of guy you cannot even quarrel with, apparently incapable of any show of emotion.

Evelyn noticed something was off, too, but I didn't want to bother her too much with what seemed like petty complaints about work and didn't much go into detail when she asked what was wrong. I told myself to be glad that the shop still existed at all after Donnie's untimely passing and I hadn't found myself unemployed at this crucial point in my life when I needed a job more than ever.

I tried not to think of Elliott too much outside of work and focused on the good things in my life, on Evelyn and the unborn baby, when I was home.

Joyful anticipation of the baby's arrival now vastly outweighed my doubts and fears. With the pregnancy progressing textbook-style and Evelyn so radiantly happy, I dared to look forward to the little one without worrying too much about what could still go wrong.

She was fairly round meanwhile with just six weeks to go, and she once said she felt like a penguin when she walked.

"I'm afraid I look the part, too, waddling about like that", she added with a wry grimace as she critically checked herself in the hall mirror.

I stepped close to her and said, "Doesn't that make us a particularly lovely couple, you waddling and me limping? Walking together, I bet we are quite a sight!"

She laughed, and I wrapped my arms around her from behind, rested my head on top of hers, eyed our reflection in the mirror and added, "Really, joking aside, you're prettier than ever."

"I'm not", she protested. "I'm looking like a barrel on legs!"

"No, you're not."

"Yes, I am! Just _look_ at me!"

"Fine, if you insist, you do look like a barrel. But I never knew barrels could be so cute."

She elbowed me playfully in the ribs in response, and both of us grinned broadly.

Looking down over her shoulder, I placed a hand on her belly, and she covered it with hers and moved it further to the side. "Keep it there for a minute. The baby's rather active today. Maybe you'll be lucky this time and finally get to feel it."

And there it was, not much later, a distinct little kick against my palm.

"Oh my God, I've finally felt her! She kicked me! That's … that's amazing, Evelyn – she kicked me! That makes it so … real." I tapped my fingers softly on the place where I had just felt my baby's tiny foot. "Come on, love, give your dad another kick."

Evelyn laughed at my excitement. "Better not. Those kicks can actually be rather painful. Oh, and you still seem to be dead sure it's a girl, aren't you?"

I nodded. I didn't know why, but from the first moment on, I had imagined the baby to be a daughter, not a son.

"Have you given the name another thought?" she asked as we walked outside to sit in the garden.

"Yes. I think we should stick with it. It is a lovely name, and I like that there's no one called the same in either of our families. You know I don't like the idea of naming a baby for another person, much as I loved my parents and my grandparents. I wouldn't want her to grow up the namesake of an Alice or Mary she never knew. I want her to be an independent person, down to her name."

"And if it's a boy after all?"

"Well, certainly not Michael or anything. We're not a royal dynasty or one of those posh families who call it _tradition_ touse one name over and over, so much that they have to attach numbers to it to keep things straight. Any suggestions?"

"What about Lucas, or Martin?"

"Mmm … honestly, I don't think so."

"Felix?"

"Um … no."

"What about Rufus?"

"_Rufus?_ You're not serious. Where did that one come from?"

"It's not that bad, is it?"

I cocked my head and narrowed my eyes and said slowly, "No, it isn't … if you happen to be a Roman emperor. When he gets a little brother, I'd suggest we go for Julius Caesar."

"I see, you're not convinced of my taste in boy's names." She chuckled. "Well, we'll find something else, then. Or, if we don't, we will simply have to hope you're right and it's really a girl."

I grinned. "Trust me, it is. A lovely little lady, just like her mother."

"Or a cute little boy, just like his dad. Shall we take a little walk?"

I nodded, and she rose and stretched a bit, pressed her fists into the small of her back and groaned, "Whatever it is, it definitely getting heavy. Good that it won't be too long now."

"Right", I said, leaning forward to wrap my arms around her middle, gently laid my cheek against her belly and kissed the spot where I had felt the baby kicking earlier.

"Can't wait to meet you, little princess", I murmured softly.


End file.
